Published on 2007-03-05 |
| Mwanawasa Praised on Firing Lands Minister |
Transparency International Zambia has welcomed President Levy Mwanawasa’s termination of Reverend Gladys Nyirongo’s appointment and the suspension of the Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Lands Commissioner Mr. Frighton Sichone over alleged corrupt practices. |
It is good that the President has acted quickly and with a sense of urgency over this matter. We hope that this will serve as a deterrence measure to all Zambians especially those that hold public office to avoid abusing their official positions for private gain.
We also wish to commend The Post Newspapers for professionally exposing the scandals that are occurring at the Ministry of Lands. The Post has continued to be ahead of our law enforcement Agencies diligently in exposing such matters. Zambians would not have known about these scandals and the swift action would not have been taken without the Gallant approach of Investigative Journalist of the Post Newspapers. We further appeal to the Republican President to extend this approach to the ruling party where senior part officials implicated on corrupt practices seem to be going scott free from being suspended.
We however wish to express our concern that despite the president having been aware of the alleged abuse of office of the Reverend Nyirongo and Mr. Sichone, it had to take a report in the post for him to take action on the matter. We wish to strongly urge him to be more proactive and not reactive to press revelations. The onus and challenge now is on the Anti-Corruption Commission to also steadfast in investigating and prosecute Reverend Nyirongo and the Commissioner of Lands.
We however wish to commend the Republican President for demonstrating political and practical will on this particular case which should also be extended to all other areas. We feel duty bound to give credit where it is due on this particular case.
Goodwell Lungu
Executive Director
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